Mile 90
From “The Ninety and Ten,” by Elder Michael A. Dunn · Saturday afternoon session, October 2026 General Conference
The big idea
When we turn to Jesus Christ, He gives us strength to keep going and often carries more of our load than we can see.
Objective
Youth will be able to explain in their own words how the Savior helps by lengthening our stride, and will choose one hard thing to pray about and one person to help this week.
Before you teach
- Read Elder Dunn's talk, The Ninety and Ten, and be ready to tell the race story in about two minutes.
- Bring a hymnbook or other book of the same size for every two youth, and a timer (a phone works).
- Bring a small card or slip of paper and a pen for each person.
- Write on the board: Shorten my course / Lengthen my stride.
- Ask the youth to have their scriptures or the Gospel Library app open.
Lesson plan
Thirty minutes in 6 parts. Times are a guide; let the Spirit and the learners set the pace.
The arm challenge
- After the prayer, start right away. Put the youth in pairs. One in each pair stands and holds a hymnbook straight out to the side at shoulder height. Start the timer. Anyone whose arm drops sits down. Stop at 60 seconds or when most have dropped.
- Round two: same person, same book, but this time the partner rests two fingers under the holder's wrist. Time it again and stop at 60 seconds.
- Ask the questions below. Draw out that the book weighed the same and the holder still had to hold it, but quiet help changed what was possible. Tell them today's talk is about that.
- What changed between round one and round two?
- Holders, did the book get lighter, or did you get help?
The race and the photo
- Tell the story quickly. Elder Michael A. Dunn of the Seventy once let his running partner Ted talk him into a 100-mile race, about four marathons back to back. Ted had finished it many times and promised to run the second half with him.
- Have a youth read what happened at mile 90: he collapsed under a tree and said, “I give up.” Have another read Ted's answer: “I know you can do this, Mike, and I’m going to get you there.” They finished the last 10 miles together, and near the end Ted stepped aside and said, “This is your race to finish.”
- Stop. Tell them a photograph of that moment arrived a week or so later and showed a secret. Give pairs 30 seconds to guess what it showed, and take three guesses.
- Reveal it: Ted was carrying two of Elder Dunn's water bottles and his pack. He had strapped the pack to his own waist at mile 90 and carried it for the whole last 10 miles, and Elder Dunn never noticed.
- Why do you think Ted never mentioned it?
- Why did Ted let him cross the finish line on his own?
Shorter course or longer stride
- Explain that the photo made Elder Dunn think of the Savior. Have everyone find Isaiah 53:4 and one person read it. Elder Dunn said he used to assume this verse meant the trail would get easier.
- Read the first key quote together: “the Redeemer rescues not by shortening our course but by helping us lengthen our stride.”
- Give the class two minutes to call out real things youth pray for that would shorten the course (cancel the test, make the problem vanish). Write them in the first column. Then, for each one, ask what a longer stride would look like and write that in the second column.
- Race: in pairs, look up Doctrine and Covenants 84:88 and Hebrews 12:1. The first pair to find, in each verse, one thing the Lord does and one thing we do stands up and reports. Let a second pair add to it.
- Read Elder Chigbundu's sentence from this conference (in the aligned quotes) and ask the last question.
- Elder Dunn also said grace can free us from weight we would otherwise carry. How can both be true: He carries, and I still run?
- When have you been given strength for something you did not think you could do?
What if nothing seems to change?
- Say this plainly: sometimes we pray hard and the thing does not go away. Elder Dunn spoke to exactly that. Read his promise in the key quotes, then the next line: “take solace knowing that feeling broken does not mean you’ve been abandoned by God.”
- Read the key quote about the Lord's hand and the Lord's heart. Ask a youth to put it in their own words (for example: not seeing His hand does not mean His heart has changed).
- Read the words of President Dieter F. Uchtdorf that Elder Dunn quoted (in the aligned quotes).
- Pair-share for two minutes on the first question below. Do not press anyone to share something private. Then share a short experience of your own or invite one volunteer.
- Think of something hard that is now behind you. Looking back, can you see any help you missed at the time?
- What would you say to a friend who feels broken and thinks God has left?
Your Ted, and being one
- Read: “Other times He simply sends us a Ted.” Hand out the cards.
- Silent writing, two minutes. Side one: the name of someone who has been a Ted to you, and what they carried. Side two: the first name or initials of someone you know who might be at mile 90, and one quiet thing you could carry for them.
- If phones are allowed, give 60 seconds to send a short thank-you message to the person on side one. If not, they can do it after class.
The week's challenge
- Give the challenge in the Act list: one hard thing, one prayer a day for stride, one quiet act for the person on the card. Have them write their one hard thing on the card and keep it in their scriptures or phone case.
- Point to Elder Dunn's promise once more and bear a brief testimony that the Savior knows the road and knows them.
- Tell them you will ask next week for one-sentence reports: where did you get strength, and whose load did you lift? Open next week's class with that question.
Key passages from the talk
“In other words, the Redeemer rescues not by shortening our course but by helping us lengthen our stride.”
“I promise that as you expend even your last drops of energy to ask, His helping hand will ultimately give you that much-needed leg up.”
“don’t confuse the perceived invisibility of the Lord’s hand with the inveterate nature of the Lord’s heart. Peace will come even when hoped-for outcomes do not.”
“He not only knows the road; He knows you and what you, as noble offspring of the divine, are capable of.”
Scriptures
- Isaiah 53:4 Everyone finds it and one person reads it before the two-column activity. Elder Dunn quoted it; ask what he first assumed it meant.
- Doctrine and Covenants 84:88 Look-up race in pairs: find one thing the Lord promises to do and where He says He will be.
- Hebrews 12:1 Look-up race in pairs: find what we are to lay aside and how we are to run. Connect it to the last paragraph of the talk.
Other voices that agree
“Often the deep valleys of our present will be understood only by looking back on them from the mountains of our future experience. Often we can’t see the Lord’s hand in our lives until long after the trials have passed.”
“The burden we carry may not always be removed, but our backs will be built to carry the load placed upon them”
Three things to remember
- Jesus Christ knows the road, and He knows me.
- He may not make the trail shorter, but He will make me stronger.
- Feeling broken does not mean God has left me.
Ways to act this week
- Pick one hard thing in your life. Every day this week, pray about it by name and ask for strength for that day, not just for it to go away.
- Send a thank-you to someone who has been a Ted to you.
- Quietly carry one thing for the person you wrote on your card: sit with them, help with homework, walk with them into class. No fanfare.
- Each night, note one moment in your phone or journal when you got through something with more strength than you expected.
Suggestions written for this lesson, not the speaker’s words.
Music
- I Need Thee Every Hour
Adapting the lesson
- At home: do the arm challenge with a parent and child as partners, tell the story, then let each person fill in a card and share side one aloud.
- Large class: run the arm challenge with six volunteers at the front while everyone else times and cheers, and do the two columns in groups of four.
- Short on time: keep the arm challenge, the photo reveal, the stride quote and the cards. Shorten the look-up race to Hebrews 12:1 only.
This lesson is an independent study aid written for this site. It is not an official lesson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Quotations are word for word from the official talk; paragraph numbers count the paragraphs of the talk as published at churchofjesuschrist.org, not counting headings or picture captions. The activities, questions and ideas for acting are suggestions; follow the Spirit and adapt them to those you teach.